.masala.chai.

This is one of my favorite recipes. Enjoy!
  • Put 4½ cups water in a saucepan, add 3 inch stick of cinnamon, 24 cardamom pods, and 24 whole cloves and bring to boil.
  • Cover it and let it simmer for ten minutes.
  • Add 2 cups of milk, 6 tablespoons of sugar and bring to boil again.
  • Throw in 3 tablespoons of any not perfumed loose black tea leaves, cover it and turn off the heat.
  • After two minutes strain the tea and serve immediately.
From Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, Barron's, New York (1983)

Note: You may substitute the 24 cardamom pods with 3½ teaspoons of ground cardamom, but you also need to know that crushed spices lose their essential oils with time, so if you use ground cardamom the chai may not be as tasty.

.dying.to.self.

Someone shared this with me years ago, and the Lord has been reminding me of it for the last few days, so I looked it up, and decided to share. Hope it gives you food for thought, like it did to me ... It definitely is a good chunk to digest! Be blessed!

DYING TO SELF

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is
happy being counted worthy to suffer for Christ,
THAT IS DYING TO SELF.


When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient loving silence,

THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impunctuality, or any annoyance: when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility... and endure it as Jesus endured it,
THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God,
THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown,
THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met, and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances,
THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself, and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising within your heart,
THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

Are you dead yet? In these last days the Spirit would bring us to the Cross: "That I may know Him ... being conformable to His death." (Philippians 3:10, The Bible)

.in.memoriam.skála.

Until the first malls opened in Hungary (and for a number of years after that), the coolest and best department store chain in Hungary was the one called Skála. And from all its stores around the country, the one I liked best was the one in Budapest, on the Buda side, conveniently named Skála Buda. Of my 9 years of life in Budapest, I lived very close to it for about 5 years. So of course, this is where I did most (if not all) of my shopping. Over the years, I had become a huge Skála fan. During the last year and a half that I lived in Budapest, I actually lived right across from it, and went there almost every day.
You could find everything at Skála, and they were the first ones in Hungary to introduce the wedding registry system. So when Arpi and I got married 3 years ago, we got registered there, and that is where many things in our house are from.
Unfortunately, with the influx of huge malls, and the change of shopping habits in the country, the company had recently closed down or sold all its stores, but the one in Buda was still holding out.
A few weeks ago, when in Budapest, I was sad to see that it had been closed as well. The parking lot was empty, the windows covered with a sign announcing the building of the new shopping center planned.
The demolition of the building started yesterday, and I just want to say: "Goodbye Skála, I'll miss you!"


.sleeping.beauty.

She is six weeks old today. Here are some of the best pictures we took this past week:

Her favorite place - in daddy's arms

Her favorite position - Nina sleeps in a position her mummy used to when a child

Yo, wazzup?